Colonel Robins and the Red Cross 1917-18

Colonel Robins 1917-18

A good week. Projects are back on track and working on a new one. The folks at the history site are talking about conducting evening tours that are specific to families or eras. If the tours are implemented, the first tours will likely focus on the Robins family or one of their members. There is a lot of attention directed toward Elizabeth Robins. She was a prolific writer with over forty novels to her credit alone. Additionally, she was a famous stage actress on both the London and European stage. To ensure that she is the center of attention, Elizabeth was also a highly regarded and influential suffragette in England. She is the subject of four biographies with a fifth being published soon and is being brought back to public through the Elizabeth Robins Diaries podcast. She’s not who I am working on. Raymond Robins, Elizabeth’s little brother, I am.  

Raymond was a labor advocate, who with his wife Margert Dieter Robins, worked at a settlement house in Chicago. Margert and Raymond was heavily involved in progressive politics in the Chicago area. Margert was the president of the National Women’s Trade Union League and leader in the progressive movement of the early 1900’s. Raymond was introduced to Theodore Roosevelt and became involved in his 1912 presidential campaign with the Bull Moose Party. Because of his background, T.R. suggested Raymond to Woodrow Wilson as member of the American Red Cross delegation to Russia during the revolution. The allies desperately wanted Russia to stay in the Great War to keep pressure from the East on the Axis and Germany. During the expedition Raymond was promoted to a Colonel in the Red Cross and given its command.  He worked with both the “Whites” anti-Bolshevik revolutionary and the “Red” Bolsheviks in an attempt to keep them in the war and on the side of the allies. Colonel Robins was one of the few Westerners to have access to the Bolshevik leaders Trosky and Lenin. Robins became the unofficial liaison between the U.S. and the Soviets. He believed that forming a relationship with the Bolsheviks was in the line with American interests and that the U.S. should recognize the Soviet government, regardless of the differences in political ideologies. This was not a sentiment shared by the allies or Wilson and he failed in his goal. It would not be until 1933 when FDR began formal relation with the Soviet Union did the United Staes recognize the Soviet Union.   

This part of Raymond’s story, arguably one the most important parts, is superficially touched on during the normal tours. It comes at the end of the first segment and is often cut out due to time constraints. There are only three artifacts on display about his time in the Red Cross, so to provide a visual and a talking point for the docents I am working on graphic to be used during the specialty tours. The first prototype is the poster above. I will get feedback on it this weekend. The basic images I am mostly happy with, but I am not thrilled with my verbiage. I do not believe it is concise enough. It is a complex and mostly unknown story that is important to the story of the people associated with the site. How do you tell a story in 10 seconds of superficial reading?